My favourite side of this story, the one we write together with our colleagues at Simoshi and its partners every day, is the incredible impact we make in the quality of the working environment for those involved when preparing the children’s daily meals.
The workplace should be a place where people feel happy, engaged, safe, inspired. Happiness at work reduces stress, raises your energy by 65% and boosts productivity as much as 31%. The kitchen space and the work of the cooks should be a comfortable environment, because they already experience the difficulties of hot food exposure, equipment and hot metal surfaces, withstanding the pressure of standing many hours at a time, and lifting heavy saucepans.
If the difficulties above are enhanced by the use of traditional 3-stone fireplaces, the workplace becomes intolerable. The fire flames becoming a constant threat and the smoke precluding the normal breathing are just a few of what the pictures show here below.
The positive impact in the lives of a cook the introduction of institutional improved cook stoves have in a school kitchen is something we are not only proud of here at Simoshi, but it is also a reminder that is it worth all the efforts to keep on trying, to get as many schools as we can, away from traditional cooking practices.
